Tokyo Faces Fresh Tensions Over Disputed Territories

Island Territories Off Nation's Coast Are Challenged Anew by South Korea, Russia and China

South Korea's president visited a pair of islets also claimed by Japan, Tokyo responded by recalling its ambassador. But as the WSJ's Evan Ramstad tells Deborah Kan, it all may be more about domestic politics than international.

By

Evan Ramstad in Seoul and

Alexander Martin in Tokyo

Updated Aug. 14, 2012 10:44 p.m. ET

Tokyo is facing escalating tensions on three fronts, as South Korea, Russia and China make fresh challenges to claims over island territories off the shores of Japan.

ENLARGE

The Liancourt Rocks, a set of islets South Korea has controlled since the 1950s but that Japan also claims.
European Pressphoto Agency

On Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, speaking on the eve of Seoul's celebration of liberation from Japan at the end of World War II, criticized Japanese handling of the countries' historic and territorial grievances, tying it to Japan's imperial past. In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Lee again urged Tokyo to resolve some of the controversies that still linger from the colonial era but didn't mention specific territorial disputes.

Japan recalled its ambassador to South Korea on Friday and suggested it might ask the International Court of Justice to settle the possession dispute after Mr. Lee made a visit Friday to a set of South Korea-controlled islets that Japan also claims. The islets, called Liancourt Rocks by the U.S. and other countries, are named Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

In another sign of the fractiousness of the moment, Japan on Tuesday asked South Korea to delay a meeting between the countries' finance ministers that was set for next week. "Japan didn't cite the issue of Dokdo as a reason for delaying the meeting," a spokesman in South Korea's finance ministry said. No new date had been suggested.

As Asia commemorates Japan's surrender in World War II, South Korea, China and Russia are reigniting three separate claims to islands off Japan's coast. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to reporter Toko Sekiguchi.

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That came as a group of South Korean students led by singer Kim Jang-hoon and other performers on Monday began a relay swim toward Liancourt Rocks with a plan to arrive on Wednesday and give a concert, according to Yonhap News Agency of South Korea.

Also on Tuesday, the Japanese prime minister's office said it has set up a crisis-control management center to deal with the issue of Hong Kong activists traveling by boat to another disputed territory—the Japan-controlled islands known as Senkaku in Japan, Diaoyu in China and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan. The group, which is protesting Japan's claim of sovereignty over the islands, is expected to arrive as soon as Wednesday.

But an official of Japan's Coast Guard said a tropical storm was likely to reach Taiwan by Wednesday and could derail the activists' plans. The official said the coast guard is unaware of any activist ships in the vicinity of the islands at the moment. The official said the coast guard is unaware of any activist ships in the vicinity of the islands at the moment.

Adding to tensions in Japan, the Russian navy said Tuesday it would send two vessels to the disputed Russian-controlled islands known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan sometime between Aug. 25 and Sept. 17 to honor Soviet soldiers who died there at the end of World War II, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

Japan has protested Russia's travel to the islands in the past. In late 2010, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited the island closest to the Japanese mainland, sparking a protest.

In South Korea, presidents traditionally use their Liberation Day speech to discuss issues from Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula. Japan is one of South Korea's closest allies and trading partners, but anger in South Korea about the colonial era persists. The inability of the two countries to settle some of the historical disagreements is complicating efforts to move forward on new initiatives, Mr. Lee's aides say.

Since Friday, the aides have taken to local media to express their view that the islets' possession isn't in question and that Japan shouldn't be upset by his visit to South Korea's sovereign territory, the first ever by a Korean president. In response to a question by a teacher at an event on school violence, Mr. Lee praised Japan as the world's second-greatest technological and economic power, and then said, "But Japan does not understand the position of a victim and an assailant."

He noted he has been invited to make state visits to several of South Korea's allies but not to Japan."I will go if I can speak freely at Japan's Diet," he said of the national legislature. "If the Japanese emperor would want to visit Korea, it would be good if he pays tribute and sincerely apologizes to those who died in fighting for liberation," he said.

By invoking Japan's emperor in the discussion, Mr. Lee may have complicated his aides' efforts to lower the temperature between the two countries. Tensions flared in June when South Korea scrapped a deal for sharing and protecting confidential military information with Japan after public criticism about closer ties with Korea's former colonizer. No visit by Japan's emperor to South Korea has been discussed, officials in both countries said. "We don't know how to interpret Mr. Lee's statement," a spokesman at Japan's foreign ministry said.

—Chester Yung in Hong Kong, and Kwanwoo Jun contributed to this article.

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